


The Heartful Gourmet

by EmeliaK



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, a homeless kokoro crashes at everyone's places and eats their food, a single significant divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeliaK/pseuds/EmeliaK
Summary: Following the abrupt, incident-shrouded collapse of the Tsurumaki conglomerate in her third year of high school, Kokoro becomes a vagrant set onto Tokyo, with no ties left......except for the people she's met through music.And for a girl not built to know how her heart's lost its home, it's... strange, when each meal begins to feel that bit more... something.[| (10/04/20): Chapter 3.Half a Week Before Christmas, Cold Coffee at Shirasagi's Apartment|]
Comments: 11
Kudos: 54





	1. Prologue: Instant Cup Noodles in a Black Suit's Apartment

Food for thought:

It's been twelve hours since the swift, sudden demise of Tsurumaki as a name - at least, a living one - on the markets. Without a clear picture, it happened, so they say, from the top down. It left key figures on the run. It blew out the entire corporate structure, leaving everyone in its cradle exposed to the harsh, arid winds of freedom. A shakeup on a seismic scale, and as a parting shot from the biggest players on the world stage, let alone the Japanese one, it's hard to imagine a point when the people of the exchange halls no longer feel the aftershocks - and it's impossible to imagine those alive in that moment would ever forget.

More food for thought:

Twelve hours makes it 3am, and Kokoro doesn't often stay up this late. ('Super-special sleepovers' aside.)

Naturally, although most dispossessed would hardly be unshaken, given the abandonment of their financial foundations without so much as even a shred of severance - funnily enough, a messy felling made the cleanest cuts - it's not like too many would've been genuinely in it for the joy of the _job._ For god's sakes, it was a bureaucratic megamachine. Even field roles were burdened with paperwork and the encroachment of waking hours daring to erase the sleeping ones completely.

Odd one out every minute, though.

Kokoro's security detail now numbered that one. One very, very daring soul; if there was any riskier place to be as an ex-Tsurumaki inner circle-ite, it was probably literally only with the showrunner Tsurumakis themselves - and who knew where _they_ were?

If nobody except this solitary black suit knew where Kokoro was right now, though, then that was mission accomplished. All contact down. All private communications empty, dead air, lest you be heard. Cellphones turned off.

Including Kokoro's.

If there was something in there that still beamed out a signal even when off, and somebody was out there tailing that, then, well, that was the both of them done for. Not like the suit had the heart to ask Kokoro for her phone in order to destroy and dispose of it. For if you're going to be paranoid properly, you have to worry about every single part - _everything_ has to become collateral.

And Kokoro certainly had some things that really oughtn't be taken. Memories with her good friends - the most ordinary part of her life that her life could offer her, even with a private force milling around behind every shadow close enough to her.

Was it okay to put Kokoro through this? As far as the suit was concerned, happily negotiating her way out of this at all was a fantasy - after a razing, no path left unscorched. What this was was... well, a pathetic, personal attempt to carry out duty to the very last.

Tsurumaki Kokoro's continued wellbeing.

A sobering, yet at times feverish duty.

At this point, the fever had blown completely off, though. This was just a waking nightmare.

It was only too fortunate that Kokoro wasn't one to particularly gauge the size of the matter, per se - or gauge the matter - or even appear to comprehend the matter ever existed in relevance to her. At this moment, she was tucked up on the couch in the suit's one-room apartment, watching the space television occupies between late night and early morning.

As long as she knew it was an adventure, she would be fine.

The suit wouldn't be, though. Being near Kokoro was a liability for _Kokoro._ The suit was only a suit, and nothing more; they only signalled safety for Kokoro if they were _meant_ to be there. Kokoro needed to be taken completely out of the picture - broken free - cut loose of her former... well, her entire life.

It's amusing enough to imagine Kokoro with a dye job; such an image flickers through their imagination, dark-haired, like suits were recommended to be. That, a quick rough haircut, and that makes a good start for a lower-key disguise.

And then where to? Kokoro's safety net had fallen through; she could hardly realistically bound off anywhere and stay alive, let alone live some semblance of life. All she had left was...

The suit's mind wanders once again to that phone, filled with photos, the button to take them almost always pushed by anyone except Kokoro herself, save a first few snaps of flowers in the garden from outside the window of the room where she'd unwrapped it for Christmas.

Them?

Things had a way of working themselves out, didn't they? In lieu of any other option, Kokoro at the very least knew her friends. All the same age or older as well, as the suit was briefed, save one, and all in more-or-less stable households save for certain members of the Mistress's band itself. Hmm. As a start, the Seta and Matsubara families were both significantly well-acquainted with and reliably well-disposed for sound reasons towards the Tsurumakis. If there were any place to shelter a girl - any place where she wouldn't be turned over - they were the most likely starts.

Though...

No, no. No. Pushing doubts about the soon-to-be future aside for now, there is actually still one thing that can postpone these tough questions. Just for that precious bit longer.

In a darkened, TV-lit room, the mild and half-stale air fills a pair of anonymous lungs, and then words come out -

"Are you hungry, Miss Kokoro?"

"Hmmm... I guess I am!" she responds, in a manner so reminiscent of normalcy, not even looking away from the screen. A beacon of status quo still, somehow, thankfully. (Sat on a couch that was beginning to flake its own leather off...)

"I'm afraid I have to apologise, but there's not much to eat in my apartment right now apart from instant noodles." _And I'd rather not step outside this soon and this late just to stroll into a convenience store._

"Instant noodles? That sounds like an exciting name!"

"I'll make you some, then, if you'd like that?"

"Sure!"

Not as if there's much making in particular that happens to a cup of instant noodles, though.

To boil water: give it heat, and some of what little time left you have to spare.

To make cup noodles: pour over boiling water, and spare a little bit more.

* * *

"Here you are, Miss. Be careful; it's hot still."

Forget the noodles. This is where the setup comes. What comes next is crucial. In fact, this is probably - definitely - the most important, profound effect this black suit will have on any person's life at all. Not just hers; everyone she knows, as though a single lone ex-detail has the station to personally cast this child across the greater world like a skipping stone.

And like many an important thing, it tries to hide in as normal a guise as possible.

The suit barely even hears what Kokoro says in response, can barely even process what Kokoro does after she takes the cup, focuses everything into forming whatever tiny drops of words it takes:

"Do you want to dye your hair?"

What form did the Miss's response take? Something like a "sounds fun", surrounded by perennially happy language, and the sounds of tiny sips and chews.

"How about a haircut too? Something fresh and different."

It sounded interesting to her.

"I can cut and dye it for you if you want."

She thought that was generous. But strange, too. Why all of a sudden?

Ah, yes, the Miss had that much wisdom. Thankfully, thankfully.

"The world has decided that you're going on an adventure. A solo one. There'll be no backup, and you'll need to be in disguise, but you can call upon your friends."

The world has? So she parrots, not quite getting it.

Goddamnit. Is it really okay to tell a child something like--

Then it hits the suit.

Eighteen.

Tsurumaki Kokoro turned eighteen this year, the summer before this winter, and in the midst of nothing changing, it was so easy to forget that she was still due to be more - more responsible for concrete things, more grounded in concrete matters, more - adult? The word feels too banal, but it's the only one that comes - than what she always was before this moment.

No suit would've ever been asked to think about it, but it all was waiting, surely to come, while Kokoro was indefinitely free as ever to follow her own delight-seeking whimsy. At the lightest drop of a hat, no world's weight on her shoulders.

In a sense, it was ironic. Drastically ironic. Along with everything else, she had been torn from her fate to a rude awakening.

Not quite as ironic - just tragic, really - was that now, one rude awakening was swapped out for another, and this one had not even a definition. The undefined was happening now.

As far as goalposts went, eighteen was a significant one. The last significant one before twenty. The two-year period when society around you really starts to get pulling its designs out.

With every thought,

it gets harder and harder to call Tsurumaki Kokoro a child anymore.

So -

"I wish you the best of luck, Miss Kokoro. Once I can tell you where you're headed, it's time for you to go."

\- the guilt, worry and fear the suit feels, seeing that genuine, confused, reaction play across her face, having to push past that and let it be -

"Um, okay! I don't get it, but it sounds like a real adventure!"

\- as simple, as crude, as insulting as the analogy must be, the suit never having harboured a child in their life, never having had real perspective, barely even the impression of a family in their head -

"It sure will be. Are you done with your noodles?"

\- was this similar to what parents felt as their children left?

"Yep! Cup noodles are tiny!"

Were the Tsurumakis similarly terrified? Were they plagued by thoughts of their violently estranged daughter, crash-landed into a world where nobody was there to pull strings for her?

"Ahaha. Sorry about that. For now, let's dye your hair then?"

Knowing the Tsurumakis...

No, that was a lie. You knew _of_ the Tsurumakis. You never _knew_ them.

But one could find it in them to hope.

* * *

Come a cold 6am, a rough choppy trim, a rougher dye that had highlights of sunflower glow still peeking through, and a shower for Kokoro, the suit has made up their mind. One place of refuge - straight from here to there. It seems an obvious choice in the end, but this is hardly the situation to immediately jump to anything, whether plainly and self-evidently sound, or maybe ridiculous enough to work.

It was instead a measured decision, going through every possibility, tracing every single competing name on the back of their hand. Names that were facts of Kokoro's life, and thus required on the tip of your tongue at all times, sat alongside the compendium of other scattershot, esoteric knowledge that somehow, nonetheless, kept proving itself useful time after mad-scrambling time.

Kitazawa. Okusawa. Shirasagi, Maruyama, Yamato, Wakamiya, Hikawa, Minato, Hikawa, Imai, Shirokane, Udagawa, Mitake, Udagawa, Hazawa, Uehara, Aoba, Tamade, Satou, Wakana, Nyuubara, Asahi, Toyama, Ichigaya, Yamabuki, Ushigome, Hanazono.

And then the final two. Completely even. Completely dead even. Frustratingly, feeling almost trivialising, the suit left Kokoro's fate up to a flimsy coin toss - and after the coin's decision, picking either one would be equally torturous for having to reject the other, so they went back and forth, imagining the first scenario, then the second, then the first again -

and it produced no conclusion, because you couldn't practically imagine much of the undefined. The only thing in play here was the promise of safety from either option.

So by mere heads or tails, the second option was Matsubara.

The first option,

"Seta Kaoru. Do you remember where she lives?"

"Yep." Kokoro has a serious expression. It's always been slightly comical when she does one, the suit thinks, personally - it fits so little, seems drawn-on in a way. What drives it behind the face may well be just as playfully constructed, for all the suit can figure. But the time is long past for doubts about Kokoro.

"And how to get there from here?"

The suit has nothing else but this. Threw out casual clothes years ago. Lived and breathed this life to the full, kept the hair on their head dark to code. Insane, perfect dedication - who else would think, even in the aftermath when all obligations are lost, to prioritise the Mistress so hard? Who'd be in any mind to run, not for the chance for their lives, but to extract such a high-risk target from all this mess? If there _was_ anyone else, then the suit might never know - it was only them that made it in time, if so.

And all it took was a single late night to break them back into a human being, confronting the dawn of the daily reality in which a frenetic waking dream was once set.

"Yep."

"Alright, then."

But one last piece of advice has to rush out of their mouth as Kokoro steps through the doorframe, almost out of sight -

"Don't look back."

It receives a quizzical "hm?", a cock of the head and a look back.

And that leaves this anonymous suit to really make something up on the spot, the purest, most nonsensical, spur-of-the-moment sentiment possible, just to rescue the moment -

"Never mind. Just make sure to eat well."

Kokoro blinks, and then nods,

and the door closes behind where she stood just those few, irretrievable seconds ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early morning, early December air, in concrete apartment corridors.
> 
> (heya! the idea for this one brewed a little, and then brewed some more, and then i started writing, and now i'm faced with my first multichapter - Kokoro in particular is a strange character for me to tackle, but tackling her this way has been in the back of my mind for a long time. i hope you'll stick around; while this was a really setup-heavy and kind of introspective prologue, food is absolutely a passion of mine, and i can guarantee it'll come into sharp focus for whatever may follow. there's an indication of what direction this is going in the tags!)
> 
> Whatever flavour the noodles were, she feels the taste still clouding her mouth.


	2. Mid-December, New Year's Ozoni at the Seta Household

While Kokoro has been at the Seta household safely for a few hours already, Kaoru has only just gotten back. Briefed by her parents at the front landing (Tsurumaki situation, their girl taking refuge, she's here for now), she's nonetheless filled with surprise to see Kokoro resting in a room within her very own abode - but that surprise is immediately overtaken by a far more glaring, concerning matter.

As she peeks round the door, this is what comes out of her mouth to that unearthly presence Earth gave form, a gold-through-black girl soundly aslumber in the guest room:

"Hello, Ko--"

And this is what she suddenly murmurs, hushed all at once:

"--good lord, how on Earth did you lame your leg?"

* * *

* * *

Kokoro's not sure why, but she's on an adventure!

A... weird one!

Starting... now!

Stood in the landing, viewing the scape from over the cast-concrete balcony, she sees the entire city, and stood against half that view another building the same form and size, balconies all facing this way, and everything in the scene suffused in vague light by - not quite the sun, but the shift out of darkness that comes before it.

(Though these aren't the words she thought, they may very well have described the ideas that had no name nor awareness at that moment in her head.)

Well! Umm! Kokoro does know the way to Kaoru's place from here - she's gotta run down one station, and then sit there for a bit, and then ten minutes out the other. Turns out while she knew how to get there, getting in the car wasn't an option this time. But, what _is_ an option is this railcard thing! That the black-suit gave her. With a penguin on it that she's gotta tap on the entrance so she can go in and out.

Neat!

Really neat...

She starts off at a jog.

Hmm... her hair feels much lighter on her head.

Why's she thought of that? It's not like anyone asked her how her hair felt. Maybe because it feels funny?

And it looks funny to her too! Because it's dark now, but she'll get used to that for sure, the black-suit says. Plus, it still looks a bit like its normal colour in places, which is kind of cool, she guesses! And it makes her think of how Ran's hair is all dyed dark too, except for that one red streak poking out - maybe Ran felt like her hair felt weird too at first -

okay, okay! Here's the staircase! Complicated stuff aside, there's no better way to start an adventure than with

a jump!

* * *

It took someone to tell her that she needed to tap the card further inside, not on the bicycle railing.

* * *

Wow, her legs still hurt!

She's never had to think it once to this day, but wow! This is what everyone who gets hurt in anime and stuff is feeling! Of course she, um, _knew_ what pain was, she'd just never really gotten to experience it like this firsthand before - she always sticks landings, after all! She just didn't expect to stick it directly against the floor this time. Floors are super hard!

Kokoro clutches her bag, and her card over it.

She really is on her own right now, huh? No suits catching her. No suits to say thank you to for catching her, even.

If you asked her - and again, that was weird! Nobody was asking her this, but she was answering - this was exciting, sure, a weird wild adventure, all on her own, but in a... in a way that didn't feel like all the excitement she'd had before, really? And ordinarily, she only got strange weird feelings she didn't know from... the, um, unhappy things she wanted to forget? Like when... when... Misaki, um... when Misaki did something sad! And Misaki isn't in front of her of right now. So what was this...?

...

Hopefully her legs stop hurting sometime soon, though! She had to walk a little funny to get to the train. And she's gotta walk back out too, so they'd better stop hurting, stat!

* * *

She taps it on the barriers this time. She's getting good at this now!

...

* * *

* * *

...is the rough scope of things, which Kaoru is further given to understand from her parents as they understood from Kokoro when they found her, failing posture and all, at their front door.

"Do we know what's happened to her legs?"

While they've arranged for the family doctor to come around, she won't be around until tomorrow, as fate may have it.

Ah, well. The bandaging and a good measure of staying still should be enough of a prescription to hold her over for now, hopefully. There was no bleeding, and no bleeding meant no infection - this much Kaoru knew to figure out, as much as her knowledge of hospital procedurals let her. The risk was all internal.

Speaking of risks all internal! This was what Kokoro herself embodied, if the measure of the situation as her parents relayed was to be taken at its word!

So! Lips sealed! Wax-sealed, as the case may be. Not to be broken open, not by curiosity-cats, not by any middleman snoopers stationed along any mailbearer's exchanges of the human tongue - by none except the intended recipients!

Ha.

As much as Kaoru understands the grave implications of letting any of this escape this roof and its walls, this is a lot to keep under one's own cap all of a sudden, and while Kaoru has historically never been the most straightforwardly communicative of souls, she's never quite been able to be the most discreet either. Call her a leaking bottle, if you will -

\- as Chisato does. There is one person she trusts to as confidential as any confidant could be.

"Kaoru?"

"Rare you should greet me with a kind question, my princess."

"Kaoru."

"Yes?"

"Kaoru, you're calling me. Start the chat or I'm hanging up. You're lucky you timed this for the break in my lecture."

"Ah. Well, actually, this may not do to talk about where one conversant is in a public space."

"Hm." Silence. "Let me get back to you shortly, then." She hangs up.

Kaoru takes a sudden, pondersome pause, pursing her lips and looking at her screen. Maybe Chisato will call her back? She _is_ the professional.

No, maybe not. Ah, well. If she's devoid of all else, Kaoru can do naught else but stew.

She sprawls out on her own bed. The ceiling above it has only been a sight in her everynight surroundings for the past few months; it was about time she moved on from the canopy bed as a symbolic gesture to herself, she felt. Dramaturge she was, eternally locked away in private princessian habits she hoped not to be. If she ever should feel nostalgic, that bed was in a spare storeroom anyhow.

Here lies first year higher student of the dramatic arts, Seta Kaoru.

Chisato calls back. Kaoru almost doesn't realise that's what's happening.

"Ah-- ah! Hello?"

"Rare you should greet me so plainly, _Kao-chan._ "

"Ah! Sorry. I hadn't expected you to actually seek to continue the conversation with--"

"Talk. Kaoru. Take a deep breath, envisage the lights on stage, and talk." A trick for the mind to stilt it, catch it out and put it back into place, but one that worked for Kaoru.

"Mm."

Under the lights. Or not, as the case may be...

"Right... you're, er, where?"

"Courtyard. I have a muffler on."

"Ah, good. Er... I suppose the news is a good starting point."

"Has there been a breaking headline in the Tsurumaki terrorism case?"

"Terrorism? Good lord, I was hardly aware."

"Hardly aware? One of the most salient details was the bomb set off in their office on the top floor, Kaoru. It's a terror attack by any name."

"Ah. I must, er, have not caught that when the news had caught me." Her parents hadn't mentioned that either, though they had been worried aplenty about the safety of the Tsurumakis themselves. "Er, speaking of the Tsurumakis..."

"Yes?"

"Kokoro is here," she mumbles quietly, trying to be surreptitious about it.

"..."

"Er."

"Yes? Go on."

"Well, er, it's just that she's here for now, and--"

"Who is?"

"I just sa--"

In a hiss, "Hold on, is this about _Kokoro? Kokoro_ is with you? I'm glad you had the awareness of mind at least not to say _that_ out loud."

Hm? Well, okay, at least they're on the same page about it, but she's fairly sure she _did_ say that out loud...

In a normal voice again, Chisato continues. "Okay. I've seen what you wanted me to see out here. I'm going back in. My lecture resumes in five minutes, after all."

"Ah! Er, good luck?"

"Good luck on what? Kaoru, I have been loaning my time to strangers my entire life. Higher education is hardly a break in the pattern."

"Erm, fair enough."

"I'll see you later."

Once Chisato hangs up, Kaoru takes in that parting phrase again. Then again, just to make sure.

Could she be coming over?

* * *

"Ozoni, is it?"

The classic New Year's dish of mochi cakes in a light soup, which her house had as a white miso preparation. 'Your great-grandmother came from Nara,' came the explanation long ago, after she'd been brutally told by classmates that miso in ozoni was really weird and not tasty at all and she had sought, in tears, some parental assurance. The explanation satisfied her enough, though she was never told _which_ great-grandmother.

Nevertheless, the Seta bloodline might've imported their tradition from Kansai to Kanto, but they certainly still always had it on New Year's. Wasn't the middle of December still a little too early?

Just testing it, her father says. A different kind of miso this year, and your mother wants perfection.

"Ah."

And she presumes to take the bowl on the tray to Kokoro's room. It certainly smells like her house's ozoni as she carries it, though maybe it's a little more savoury to the nose than it was in past years?

It certainly does make her feel like the new year's coming, though. As if she can see it right around the door.

"Kokoro?"

Still asleep soundly, then. Kaoru rests the tray on the bedside cabinet, and takes a seat at the desk furnishing the guest room as though it were still a study.

And she breathes out.

It's quite tempting to let the situation race through her head, but the fact of the matter is that it's not even at a move right now. Kokoro is here, what comes next is not ready to be considered yet, and that's that for the moment. Hardly productive to let waves overwhelm her when the sea's still flat as a mirror.

Hardly.

She lets lines run through her head. From the top of "Ha! I like not that.", please...

* * *

It's a scant half an hour... or more? Half an hour and an hour behind that? Lord, she drifted off somewhere... it's that much later when Chisato turns out, dressed appropriately for battling the vanguard of winter's chill.

"Chisato...?" Kaoru yawns.

"Tired, are we? I see a girl with very strange hair in your bed."

"Mm." Kaoru stands up, supporting herself with one hand on her chair, trying to let the headrush of waking up not overcome her. "She's dyed it and given it a rough trim, it seems."

"It looks deliberate, at least. I shudder to imagine what would turn out should you have given her a pair of shears and told her to try it herself."

"Someone else did it for her, you think?"

"I hardly imagine she knows how to dye her hair on her own, either."

"Interesting. She's not _too_ recognisable, is she?"

"Not very. Hair is a powerful image-changer. Moreso when it's not obviously a wig."

"We have someone sympathetic, then."

"Had. Your parents recounted to me 'as much as Kokoro told us that we've told Kaoru', and Kokoro mentioned a detail... ex-detail of her personnel. The suited, sunglassed force of hers, remember?"

"Ah. No, yes, you're correct. No, entirely correct. A black suit. She was sent off here by one, then..."

"A fair enough decision, I'd think - as long as you were more concerned about Kokoro's happiness than her safety."

"Little cruel of a judgement to make, don't you think?"

"The fact of the matter is, precautions with appearance, instruction to move to a place with sympathetic ties aside..." - this is all boilerplate, she waves it past - "the _much_ safer option would've been to keep her somewhere completely off the radar for as long as needs be."

"...mm."

"You are aware the public knows of her disappearance just as well as the Tsurumaki showrunners', right?"

"Is she that dangerous?"

"We hardly have a grasp on anything and no demands have come out from any which way, but."

In emphasis, Chisato puts her foot down, one hand firmly on the desk, and she leans into Kaoru's face. It only has echoes of the effect Chisato wished for, but that's enough for her at this point.

"As much as there are countless possibilities that this is overblown and she's perfectly safe... it'd be foolhardy to forget every possibility that she _isn't_."

"For now, at least?" Kaoru isn't used to thinking dourly, but she makes her best effort when it comes to Chisato. (She's saving saying that for a day when she _wants_ to get slapped.)

"For now," Chisato agrees, backing off from the desk and turning her gaze towards other things.

Any other things.

She points at the top of the cabinet. "I assume that was for her?"

"Hm? Ah, the bowl. Yes."

"What is it?" She steps over, curious to inspect it. "Ah, miso soup? Your comfort dish."

"Ozoni, more specifically. Are you still jibing at my 'secret preferences'? Hardly the most in-date idea."

"Mature as much as you like, Kaoru, but there isn't a single inch of honesty you can bare that I didn't already know. You even spent three years getting me accustomed to tearing down the Prince of Haneoka just to talk to you."

"Touché. I may well develop new traits, though."

"Surprise me."

* * *

The sun is gone when Kokoro wakes up, clothed, laid on top of the bedsheets - the great windows bare murky, indistinct rural night at her, and the only light she can see is from the hallway, through the door that's been left open, which just makes the rest of the room feel even more unlit in comparison--

_Lonely?_

Is that a word for Kokoro?

Um.

She shouldn't move her legs, right. She remembers that. They still hurt.

...

There's a note on the bedside.

It looks like Kaoru wrote it.

Chisato's staying the night, and she wants to talk to you, so don't be surprised. Message Kaoru if you need anything and she'll be right there. Kaoru can reheat the ozoni for you when you wake up.

Ozoni? Before Christmas? She didn't know you could have it then as well. Neat!

...

Neat.

Kokoro peeks at the bowl, then pulls the tray over so she can try a spoonful. It doesn't look like it has much mochi in it, for some reason.

It tastes like sweet miso soup and chicken.

But... cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mm," Chisato notes, tapping at what Kaoru's just penned on a torn scrap of Chisato's pocket planner. "The mochi in her ozoni's already melted."
> 
> (it's been over a month! whoops, but here we are, and i'm glad if you're still with me / if you had a hunch, you're probably correct - there's some tribute in this to Kodoku no Gourmet, a sparse long-run manga series about a businessman and his meals that had a very contemplative and oftentimes loose, non-resolutory tone that i'm a big fan of. hope you enjoyed!)
> 
> "Er. Ah. You're right. If she doesn't want this one, I suppose I'll get her a new bowl, then?"  
> "How kind. Her band really does wait her on hand and foot."  
> "Hm?"  
> "Oh?"  
> "No, it's just that you mention the band..."


	3. Half a Week Before Christmas, Cold Coffee at Shirasagi's Apartment

Putting aside how you woke up in a panic in Kaoru's room -

Putting aside how you woke up in a panic in Kaoru's _bed_ -

3:47am. 27:47. Although now that you've woken up, this may as well be the start of your new day, because you're not going back to sleep. Shirasagi Chisato has made the choice to join Kaoru in bed enough times in her life, and enough times is precisely zero times. You hope to every listening god above - surely at least one or two of them still bother with you, right? - this one doesn't count as your first, because you do not remember giving any seal, stamp or signature of approval to sleeping face-to-face with Kaoru's nightgowned back.

The sun won't be up for a long time. Bless your ability to fake being a morning person for the management.

More pertinently. Seta issues set aside. You came here to find out about the Tsurumaki girl. She looks near-unrecognisable for a start, which, okay, yes, is good, but it's not just the dyejob that did it - really, she looks, for lack of any words that both mean the right thing and ever usually apply to that girl - haggard. Worn.

She looks worn beyond belief.

It's only been... thirty-six? A day and a half's hours since it all came down, but you imagine she's likely never had a rougher time in her life.

Hmm. You'd like to say your business here isn't quite Kokoro, though. Rather, it's Tsurumaki. The sense of responsibility baked into you, the drive to keep things professionally oiled, the want - need - to let what's in your control never become uncontrollable -

In essence, you're here to pick up Kokoro, you're thinking. To contain the Tsurumaki heir. _Not_ to leave it up to Kaoru.

Obviously, the moment you think that, reason tells you _it's not her, it's the Setas, you imbecile._ Which, yes, fair. Her parents, mostly. Not her.

Nobody except Chisato can be trusted to be Chisato, though, and greedy as it is, you want this all under your own grasp. Maybe it's partly an illogical thrill, keeping the golden girl safe, and maybe it's partly because you think that as inconvenient of a factor she'd be in your life you _would_ also have all those chips on your table, whatever those chips are...

You pace out into the hallway, begin wandering its lengths.

Well, thinking it through logically. Holding onto her means you decide her fate. If she's being asked for by her parents, you'll be the one to send her back with a personal Shirasagi care package in tow to remember. If she's being asked for as part of some strange condition of ransom... you're sure you have the brain to negotiate that when the time comes and everything has fallen where it may. So long as it doesn't involve navigating to their warehouse.

If this is all overblown and no agent of import is going to care about her save the good Hanasakigawa Girls' School, then come the time to reintroduce her to the world, you'll be the one having harboured her, standing in the focus of the news lens. Yes, of course the surprise return of the Tsurumaki girl would make some kind of headline. It could last days. Could be an onslaught of tireless, relentless publicity. Favour of the populace falling your way. Or away from your way. Either or.

Conversely, if revealing the girl who had the deepest pockets in all of Japan doesn't make a big splash, you're storming into the newscasters' room with a hostage Aya in tow and threatening to slit her throat live on air to raise the shitstorm you deserve. Yes, this means you hardly imagine it'd happen, but no, this doesn't mean you wouldn't do it. 

Please let the clock say five hours passed in your frantic delusion.

Nope. 3:49. Clearly these are the hours where all time passes slower than you could ever think.

The actual reason you care about this whole shebang, you think - the actual reason you want to be the one with Kokoro on your shoulders - is because you feel like you ought to be.

Why do you feel like you ought to be? It's...

It'd be novel, you suppose.

Oh, yes. Shirasagi Chisato leads a sad, sad life, doesn't she. Please, by all means, may the audience weep for her. (If anyone weeps for you, you have a license to kick them in the face as they do it. Hell, they might even thank you.)

* * *

Kokoro's light is on. Perfect. Both of you are awaking at strange hours.

You peek through the crack of the open door, but knock politely anyhow. The black-haired figure - right, right, very effective, clearly, yes - the black-dyed Kokoro perks up, looks at you away from her phone, and makes a "hmm?" noise.

It's close to the one she makes when curious of something, but somehow feels much more flat against the ground.

(Which is cruel wording for a girl who's been knocked out of orbit.)

She clearly wasn't expecting you. Shuffles a bit in her place in bed. Fails to particularly negotiate her tightly bandaged legs, seems to understand not to disturb them. Could it be someone sensible was hiding behind Kokoro all along?

(You chide yourself. Maybe just parts of her brain she'd had, but never had a reason to call up until now. Kokoro doesn't yet know well the footing she's making.)

(Poor girl.)

"Did I wake you up?"

"Nope! I've been awake for hours and hours."

"Ah. You must've been about to fall asleep from boredom, then, I imagine. Unless you, er, have games on your phone, or..."

"Um... yeah!"

Never mind, you have more sympathy in this conversation for yourself now. Is this a girl anything could prepare you for talking to?

"..."

Just broach it directly?

(Kokoro smiles.)

Just broach it directly.

"Would you like to live with me for a while?"

* * *

Diagnosis: Minor left leg fracture, right luckily unscathed. No reduction or surgical procedure necessary. Recovery time of around two months recommended, to be safe. Without imaging, impossible to be sure without a doubt - but given the circumstances, the doctor chooses not to press the issue.

Kokoro opts for crutches. You're not sure why you expected her to choose the wheelchair.

* * *

By the late afternoon, Kokoro is asleep once again, and you're feeling the fumes in your head.

Kaoru seems to notice as much. (At least as much, you spitefully edit over yourself.) "Are you okay, Chisato?"

"Yes."

"Why'd you ask Kokoro to stay with you?"

You groan.

"Er, um, sorry. I'm sure you have your reasons." You bet she thinks you always have your reasons these days. You just bet.

"Something just doesn't sit right with me about the Tsurumaki girl staying with one of her close families."

"Don't, um, Kokoro's family get along with yours?"

"We're not acquainted."

"Ah. I see. Er, forgive my impudence for asking, but..."

_Go on. Say whatever it is you want to say._

"Are you sure you're okay with taking care of her? I know she, erm, can be somewhat of excess to certain people not used to her, and..."

"Kaoru."

Kaoru stalls, stops, and listens.

"You cannot now treat the girl in the bed the same way you've always treated her. Look at her. Listen to her. Think over her."

"...mm."

"She's lost her boundaries."

"...erm, forgive the moment of what must seem like lucidity from me, I'm sure -" When did you learn self-deprecation, Kaoru? "- but if I were to describe her the way you describe her, I'd say she wouldn't have had boundaries in the first place. And in the current situation, their introduction..."

She falters.

"No, yes, I understand, Kaoru. Consider her past limitless bounds a pen. Akin to a child in their toybox of riches forever."

"Ah."

"In a sense, this is her welcoming to the real world, wouldn't you say?"

"...I'd hesitate to call the world she brought us through any less real than--"

"Tsurumaki enabled that world. This world brought Tsurumaki down. Whatever lingering attachments you have, I invite you to go and find the next multi-billion corporation with a spoilt-rich only child to latch onto instead of coddling a girl with a broken leg in the ghost of what you remembered of her."

"..."

Stress makes the worst of us all, but you're sure in the throes of yours, you've bitten at Kaoru, time and time again.

Why does she keep letting you do it?

* * *

One week later, the news has barely settled down. Some suspects in for questioning, as reported, but only a few - hardly anywhere near the numbers that should've been involved in the act.

You stare at the radio, groggily, from your countertop, and let the presenter's words rattle around in your brain.

Good morning from Casa de Shirasagi. Kokoro is in your guest room, left leg bound in a cast and crutches by her bedside, and in your idle curiosity, you've peeked at the emerging hints of golden roots in her hair this morning. (It seemed to make her stir, but you don't have any mind to pay whether she noticed or not.)

Feeding her has been simple enough - your rice cooker is on an automatic schedule, and is enough of a family model that you can simply double what you were eating yourself and it cooks just fine - you've asked her for what side dishes she likes, just in case you ought to buy anything outside of what you usually do, and her response is that she has nothing she doesn't like.

You often make yourself sandwiches as an idle snack, but she seems to like nibbling at one or two throughout the day too. Cucumber. Cold cuts of ham. A strange mango preserve you found in a sundries store once that seemed about half as expensive as it should've been, and came in a mason jar that appealed to your whims that day.

This morning is a Saturday devoid of schedule, and beyond the week of classes looming ahead is the week of winter break.

Merry winter solstice, you suppose. Not that Maya actually explained what that was when she decided to drop a group message at just past midnight, and prompted you to remember to silence your phone.

You turn your attention to your mug. It's coffee, but you forgot about it after you brewed it last evening. Just because you're able to sleep and wake on the world's demand doesn't mean you don't get tired. You've been knocked a little out of place after your stint at Kaoru's, not to mention. It luckily doesn't interfere with your lecture timings, but it does mean you're nearing zombie state by the time the sun goes down, and the sun goes down early these days.

You take a cautious sip.

Very bitter. Maybe you should reheat it. Was there any wisdom anyone had for that, or were you trapped in the reputation of the biggest coffee drinker in your entire band-friend circle? It wasn't even a drink you particularly enjoyed - you were more for light flavours, reminiscent of your home pastel. You still drank it out of a sense of necessity, because one foolish night in the spring of your university start, you decided it wouldn't hurt to wake up with more than just tea in the morning.

Then you decided it wouldn't hurt to have both in the evening either. You'd vex anyone who asks you which camp you fall into. Maybe this much caffeine is to blame for, well, whatever you'd like to blame something for these days.

You eye the cabinet where your tea is stored.

Kokoro hobbles out of your guest room. Though you're still a little surprised by her in the mornings, she's starting to become a familiar sight all the same. Seems to have taken to the crutches just fine.

"Good morning, Chisato," she chirps.

"Good morning."

"What're you drinking?"

"Mm. I'm not sure if I should be."

"Is it wine?"

"No." You wish. "Coffee. I left it out last evening, but forgot to drink it."

"Can I try?"

"Go ahead." See if she really does like everything, you think to yourself, handing the mug over. She leans her back against the counter to let a crutch off, and takes a decently brave gulp.

She coughs once, but nothing sprays out of her mouth.

"Impactful, isn't it? Hardly what it was when it was hot."

"It's still fine! It wakes me up." She sets the mug back down by her side, and wipes her mouth.

"I was considering microwaving it, but something tells me there's no way to actually save coffee gone cold."

"I'll drink it! I'll drink it." She turns around to face you, elbows down on the counter, beaming. "If you don't want it."

"No need to force yourself. I still have plenty."

"No, it's fine! I like it."

"...you _are_ impressive, aren't you?"

"Eheheh."

You notice her smile is a little more tempered these past few days, less blindly innocent. It's not a bad quality to have.

The sunlight angles in sharply through your windows, fifth floor with a miniature balcony just enough for two people to stand on. It almost misses your pillow in the morning, but lies across your forehead for you to bask in that pleasant, well-set winter warmth - as long as you didn't wake up buried in your duvet. Catches the shelf of CDs on the far end of your living room.

Kokoro's become more comprehending these past few days, too - you almost think _competent,_ but that's unfair to her - of her situation. Not in the childlike way, where one ravenously asks what seems like surface questions, and the answers settle down at one's life foundations - no, she's not a child.

She's not a child. She's settling into her maturity. Letting the understanding of unspoken things have a place in her. It's a signpost of maturing many take for granted and lodge frustrations with the absence of, but in Kokoro's case, you suppose it was always just in waiting.

On the flipside, you are a little upset that all the good answers you'd worked out to hypothetical questions like 'when can I go home' and 'why are things weird' have been completely unnecessary.

"Kokoro."

"Hmm?"

"How do you feel right now?"

She makes a hum as to think, glances up at the ceiling, takes a finite moment to decide on an answer.

"I'm getting used to it."

The way she says that, you're not sure if it should end with an exclamation mark or a simple full stop.

Coffee mug in hand, she chuckles awkwardly, with a novel depth,

as though she responds to the pondering of Shirasagi Chisato.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere's construction begins to sound for the day, and they listen to the ambience of distant, central Tokyo, in weave with the radio news.
> 
> (while it's been yet another month and a half, you can probably imagine my schedule is much emptier now, and we're finally coming out of the setup of the story! i completely forgot to anticipate Morfonica, but rest assured, i'm definitely not unaware. if there's anything you'd personally be interested in seeing, the road ahead is still long, and i'd love to hear your thoughts!)
> 
> Chisato messages Kaoru. _[Yes, she's doing fine.]_


End file.
